Lexical Errors in the Written Compositions of Thai EFL students: Neglectful Instruction of Vocabulary Teaching
Abstract
This article emphasized the analysis of the lexical errors in the written work of fourth-year students at Prince of Songkla University (PSU), Pattani campus, majoring in English from both the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The aim of this study was to investigate the types of lexical errors produced by Thai students who study English as Foreign Language (EFL). This study also attempted to explain the possible causes of lexical errors in terms of interlingual and intralingual errors. From the analysis of the data, it was revealed that the highest percentage of errors was attributed to direct translations, the type of interlingual errors. For intralingual errors, the majority of error was attributed to omissions while confusion of binary terms was the least frequent of lexical errors found. The findings of this study showed that students had a great difficulty in producing vocabulary in the written composition. The influence of the mother tongue was the main cause of errors in the use of vocabulary among Thai EFL students. The main difficulty encountered was negative transfer from their native language rather than difficulties within the Target Language (TL).
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